A ship accidentally cut Jersey's internet cables with its anchor

A ship has managed to accidentally cut internet cables connecting
Jersey to the UK — drastically slowing internet speeds on the
island.

A ship's anchor dragging along the seabed on Monday night has
severed the three cables used by network company JT to connect
the Channel island to the English mainland,
JT said on its website.

As a result, it is now reliant on one cable to France — which is
slowing connections.

Repair efforts are now underway on the fibre-optic cables, and
may take a "week or so."

Daragh McDermott, director of corporate affairs for JT, said in a
statement that the company is "working as quickly as we can to
get our undersea cables repaired, and normal service resumed, and
will keep customers up-to-date with what is an extremely
challenging emergency engineering operation at sea."

He added: "It is exceptionally unlucky and unprecedented for
three submarine cables to the UK to be cut in the same day, and
it proves the value of having multiple links in the network, in
order to provide a back-up connection via France."

And it's not just JT's cables that are affected. "There are lots
of cables running across the seabed, and we understand that it is
not just JT who have been affected in this way, with other cables
also having been cut."

The BBC
is reporting that the ship responsible has not been
discovered, and if it is, its insurance will pay for the repairs.
(Otherwise JT's insurance will cover it.)

JT expects some disruption to services over the next week or so
after three out of its four international submarine cables were
cut yesterday evening. It is thought that the three fibre-optic
cables to the UK were cut by a ship dragging its anchor along
the seabed, which also cut a number of other submarine cables
in its path. All communications traffic to/from the Channel
Islands is now being routed via the submarine cable link with
France instead – but with all traffic now using this
connection, customers may notice some impact on services. JT
engineers have been working on the situation throughout the
night, and have already mobilised the specialist team that
repairs major undersea cables. It is not possible to get a
precise time yet on when those cables will be repaired, but the
work will be completed as soon as possible.

Daragh McDermott, Director of Corporate Affairs for JT,
said:

"We would like to sincerely apologise to our customers for any
disruption to their services.

"We are working as quickly as we can to get our undersea cables
repaired, and normal service resumed, and will keep customers
up-to-date with what is an extremely challenging emergency
engineering operation at sea.

"It is exceptionally unlucky and unprecedented for three
submarine cables to the UK to be cut in the same day, and it
proves the value of having multiple links in the network, in
order to provide a back-up connection via France.

"There are lots of cables running across the seabed, and we
understand that it is not just JT who have been affected in
this way, with other cables also having been cut."